The Campus Chasm: Are We All One CSU?

Twenty minutes. That’s about how long it takes to get between Columbus State University’s Main Campus and RiverPark. It’s a short trip, and the shuttles make it dozens of times a day - but for many students, that tiny distance may as well be the Pacific Ocean.

“We just don’t know each other at all.”

“It’s like two different cultures almost.”

“I don’t know much about them. They don’t exist here.”

These are just a few things that students said when asked what they thought about their peers from the opposite campus. CSU is one university, but how much of a disconnect is there between RiverPark and Main Campus? And more importantly—is that divide harmful?

RiverPark campus is still a relatively new feature of CSU. The RiverCenter was completed in 2001, bringing the Schwob School of Music with it. The theatre and art departments moved downtown in 2007 after a massively successful fundraising campaign allowed the university to firmly plant its footprint in UpTown Columbus.

Before then, all of CSU’s programs had been centered in one location. Now, the student body is split. Fine and creative arts students (with a smattering of communication, history and geography majors) spend virtually all of their time downtown, while everyone else studies, socializes, and often lives near Main Campus.

But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing on its own. RiverPark is an incredible resource for arts students, with some of the most advanced facilities of their kind available to students at a fraction of the cost of larger universities. CSU’s beautiful, downtown campus has generated millions of dollars for the city, spurred a business renaissance on Broadway, and attracted many students who may not have considered the school before. CSU (and Columbus) would be worse without it—but it’s come at a cost.

~Some RiverPark students felt that Main Campus students “Just have it better off. They have to work less hard, and they’re probably going to get more out of it.”~

Many RiverPark students don’t feel as if they’re part of CSU. “I think we just feel like the Schwob is [a] separate entity. I don’t feel like there is a real unity that exists between main campus and downtown,” said freshman music performance major Anastasia Golovina.

If there’s something students do agree on, it’s that there are two very different cultures between the two campuses. Take a student from the Schwob School of Music like Anastasia and compare her to a student who majors in something like criminal law, psychology, or biology.

The rigors each student experiences are different. For example, students have to audition to get into the music school and to perform in various ensembles; they attend mandatory convocations to hear peer performances, they do recitals and take classes where students sing or write music based on hearing a played passage. It’s not your typical classroom textbooks and PowerPoints.

A cursory look into the theatre department sees students working with loud machinery or sanding a prop. The halls of the Corn Center are lined with abstract student creations, like a museum. Conversations overheard in hallways are about gigs and competitions and pieces that are currently being studied and perfected. Students at RiverPark don’t just study the arts, they embody them, and commit to them and their temporal and physical demands.

Conversely, students in other majors tend to have different needs – science labs, research papers and online quizzes. Classes are more formulaic – scantrons, multiple choice tests and essays as opposed to conductors batons, paintbrushes, and props. The business, sciences, and other “practical” majors lean towards a more academic-driven education as opposed to the more hands-on experience downtown students have.

When asked about main campus students, some RiverPark students feel like they work harder yet will still have a more difficult time finding employment after school. Junior music performance major Cameron Dale felt that main campus students “Just have it better off. They have to work less hard, and they’re [probably] going to get more out of it.”

Sophomore nursing major Lily Thompson thinks that that is just not true. “I wanted to shave my head last semester because I was so stressed out. It depends on your major, it depends on how much you put into your work.”

The geographical divide between RiverPark and Main Campus further exacerbates the fact that arts are already seen in a different light, as less practical or serious in some cases. Senior liberal arts major Michellé Leonard says that, although she herself doesn’t see it that way, she understand why some main campus students may not take RiverPark students as seriously as they could. “Here, it’s more knowledge based, there’s less foot traffic. I feel like people do look down on art students though…because if stuff hits the fan, that’s the first thing that’s going to go. You know, people say ‘Well you just entertain people, and we can do without entertainment if we need to.’”

~“I’m a lot more familiar with the campus down here, it’s like a lot more of a home to me. It’s more of my space than on main campus where it’s like going to a completely different school”~

Perhaps the biggest impact divided campuses have is on school unity. Do students all feel like they’re a part of CSU, or just parts of their own campuses and departments? Are RiverPark students eating at cookouts by the clock tower? Are Main Campus students witnessing the incredible art, music, and performances of their crosstown peers? How can CSU consider itself a cohesive school if some of its students will never cross paths?

Jobie-leigh Snyder, a senior design and technical theatre major said, “When you’re on main campus you hear very, very little or see very little in terms of what RiverPark is doing, and RiverPark sees and hears very little of what main campus is doing. Sometimes we’ll get posters, like Tower Day, [and] there’s like two posters in the art side, but there’s absolutely nothing in the theatre section over like in One Arsenal or anything saying whatever main campus is doing. I already know of a lot of main campus students who didn’t even know that they have tickets to all of our shows that they don’t have to pay for.”

Senior theatre design and technology major Chiara Bertarioni agrees. “There’s not really that much crossing between. I don’t see that many main campus people coming and watching shows here but I also don’t see that many of our students going there, watching games or doing activities.”

But the greatest deterrent to school unity is the geographical divide, and it’s a tough job to find ways to cross it. The shuttles between campuses limit the ability of carless students to participate in events on Main Campus, particularly if they have classes downtown. It takes about 20 minutes to taxi between the two campuses, and that is largely a reason why many students could not be bothered to go to far away events, even if they are interested.

“I don’t like going to main campus, it’s far away, I don’t like taking the shuttle, and I don’t have a car. It’s very different down here. I’m a lot more familiar with the campus down here, it’s like a lot more of a home to me. It’s more of my space than on main campus where it’s like going to a completely different school,” said Timothy Villalovas, a freshman theatre education major.

Many students have been actively avoiding taking classes on the opposite campus because of the commute, but are they at least forming friendships with students from the other campus? When asked, various students found the other campus either more cliquish than their own, or more intimidating.

RiverPark students admitted to spending very little time with their Main Campus brethren. “All the RiverPark students talk about when you go to main campus that it kind of like sucks the life out of you. We don’t really know people there, so we kind of clique up and base our schedules off of other people’s schedules so we’re not in a class with people we don’t know. I wouldn’t say the students are that much more different, it’s just the environment. The downtown culture is more lively,” said Bertarioni. “If I have a class on main campus I usually make one friend so that I can text them about assignments. If anyone talks to me I won’t be rude obviously, but I don’t go out of my way to make friends over there.”

Main campus students seem to feel the same way about the environmental difference. “The culture downtown is very open and very accepting and free. Here it’s kind of cliquey, you have to stay in your lane, do what you came for and not really be out there,” said Leonard. Her friend, senior computer science major Avery Mclean added that “People from downtown, they come to main campus and you can kind of tell sometimes. They talk really loud and you know, here, you don’t really talk at all.

~“If anyone talks to me I won’t be rude obviously, but I don’t go out of my way to make friends over there.”~

The simple solution to the campus divide would simply be to increase visibility and promotion between campuses. Fixing the information asymmetry would be a start, and making sure that students on either campus know what is happening across town is the first step toward uniting the campuses. Fortunately, steps are already being taken in that regard: “Both campuses are starting to put on activities on both sides of town. For instance last night we had a creative writing student put on a performance in the Depot, and this spring break the art club is painting a mural on main campus, so they’re starting to overlap,” said Charles Cowsert, a junior art studio major.

With education and nursing students joining the communications and history and geography departments in the Uptown area, it’s an open question about how students pursuing these degrees will feel in the new environment. But it may not be as big of a shock as some might think. Today every student of every major is facing their own challenges, expectations and cutthroat competition, and that transcends any geography.